


This Family Thing

by nightwalker



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Family Feels, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Holidays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 13:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16811971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/pseuds/nightwalker
Summary: Ford's getting used to this family thing, of belonging somewhere again, but there are the occasional bumps in the road.





	This Family Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This is like, shameless and pointless fluff. Just total fluff.

There was a long moment where they just stared at each other, Ford with an easy smile, Soos with wide eyes and his mouth slowly rounding into a startled O. The moment paused and held, stretched thin as Soos’s expression started to crumple, and Ford slowly realized he had no idea what was happening.

Soos burst into tears and collapsed to the floor.

Ford froze in place for a moment, spine tense. His right hand was still hovering in mid-air where just a moment ago he had clasped the young man on the shoulder. “Did I… say something wrong?” he asked.

Soos made a sound best described as _keening_.

“All right, it’s - it’s okay.” Ford squatted down beside him and slowly reached out to pat him on the back. “There there? Are you hurt?” He tried to think what he would do in this situation if it were one of the children reacting this way and after a moment of desperately rifling through his options, admitted that there really was only one thing he could do in this scenario. “Stan!”

He could hear the television from inside, where they had been watching the Thanksgiving game before dinner. Ford had never cared much for televised sports - cared even less for playing them in person, of course - but he’d enjoyed the warm, comfortable feeling of family. Melody and Soos had been rooting for opposite teams and cheerfully trash-talking each other while Stan switched sides with shameful abandon depending on who was winning at the time. Ford had amused himself by disagreeing with Stan as much as possible and mostly ignored the actual game. It had been… nice. Very nice. It felt like home. Ford had been back in his home dimension for five years, reconciled with his brother and their extended family for four and a half of them, and sometimes the idea that he belonged somewhere, belonged _to_ someone, several someones, still struck him between the ribs like a crossbow bolt. 

And then Melody had gotten up to check on the turkey, and Soos had mentioned that he wouldn’t mind Ford’s feedback on a new exhibit for the Mystery Shack and now here they were, Soos sobbing on the floor of the gift shop while Ford desperately wracked his brains to figure out how they’d gotten here. 

“ _Stanley!_ ” he called again, a little more urgently. “I need your help, please!”

He heard his brother’s footsteps before Stan appeared in the doorway. “I’m coming, I’m coming, keep your pants on for-” He stopped in the doorway and took in the scene. “Sixer, why’d you break my handyman?”

“He’s not your handyman anymore and I - have no idea.” Ford still had one hand resting on Soos’ back and he absently patted the man again. “I was hoping you could-” he gestured at Soos in what even he could admit was not a particularly eloquent way.

“Yeah, yeah.” Stan rolled his eyes at him but the corner of his mouth was curved up in a hint of a smile as he ambled over. “Soos, do we need to kick my brother’s butt?”

Soos shook his head and wriggled across the floor to latch onto one of Stan’s legs.

Stan lifted one eyebrow at Ford.

“I honestly don’t know what I did,” Ford said. 

“Soos, you’re getting my slippers wet,” Stan said. He half-heartedly tried to lift his leg but Soos just clung on harder. 

“Oh, sweetie.” Melody slipped into the room behind Stan. “What’s going on?”

“Ford broke him.”

“We were just talking!” Ford’s chest felt a little tight, and he was starting to get that uncomfortable trapped feeling he always got in social situations when he didn’t know the right way to act. He wasn’t used to feeling that way around Stan or the rest of the family, and that was making him feel even worse. “He wanted to show me the Penguicorn display-”

Stan’s eyes gleamed. “I like it already.”

“You _would_ ,” Ford said because if there was one consistent thing in their lives it was Stan’s appreciation for ridiculously bullshit taxidermy. “He showed me the display and I made a couple of suggestions on the finishing touches. I thought it was helpful,” he added, suddenly doubtful. “I don’t think he was insulted? I’m certainly sorry if it came across that way.”

Melody crouched down next to him and ruffled Soos’s hair. “I’m sure it’s fine, Ford. Soos knows you mean well. Isn’t that right, babe?”

Soos sighed, shaky and a little wet-sounding. “He said-” his face crumpled again and he practically bawled the next word. “ _Uh-uh-uncle!_ ”

“What?” Stan said. He was looking down at the trio of people crouched around his legs with a slightly baffled expression.

“Oh. _Oh_.” Ford let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding in, relief making his shoulders slump. “Oh, I understand now.”

“If someone wants to explain it to me before my feet start pruning up, that would be great.” 

“I - well, we were talking about the exhibit and Soos called me ‘Other Mister Pines’ as he is wont to do. I reminded him that he doesn’t have to call me Mister Pines and he corrected himself to Doctor Pines.” It was a conversation he’d had with the younger man a dozen times in the first few months he’d known him, and then a dozen times again over the intervening five years. But today’s conversation had been a little different, and Ford risked a sideways glance at his brother to gauge Stan’s reaction to this particular liberty. “And I told him not to be ridiculous, he was family and he should call me Uncle Ford.”

He was aware of Melody and Stan staring at him and ducked his head a little. “Well, it seemed appropriate,” he said, a little defensively.

Stan chuckled a little and patted him on the shoulder. “Sounds appropriate to me,” he said. “What do you think, kid?”

Soos nodded his head against Stan’s leg and sniffled.

Melody smiled at Ford. “I think it’s perfectly appropriate. In fact,” she said in a pointed tone, “I think it’s very relevant to something Soos and I have been wanting to talk to you two about.”

Soos let go of Stan’s leg and sat bolt upright like a jack-in-the-box. “Are we going to do the thing?”

“I think we should do the thing,” Melody said brightly. “We were going to tell you guys at Christmas,” she said, looking up at Stan. “But this seems like the perfect lead-in.” She pushed herself up to her feet and clapped her hands. “Do you want to do it or should I?”

Stan held out a hand and hauled Soos up off the floor. “What are you two up to?”

“I’ll get it!” Soos chirped, all tears suddenly forgotten. He ran back into the house at full speed, calling over his shoulder, “Don’t move, dudes! I’ll be right back!”

Ford offered his brother a look, which Stan returned with a shrug. “I hope,” Ford said, “that I didn’t make you uncomfortable. Perhaps that was overstepping my boundaries-”

“Ford,” Stan said. He wasn’t looking at either of them, but his eyes were suspiciously bright. “You didn’t say anything everyone didn’t already know, so stop worrying about it.”

“Soos does know,” Melody said. She hooked her arm through Stan’s and leaned against his shoulder. “Neither of you ever _says_ anything about it, but he knows.”

Stan kind of grunted. “At least he’s stopped trying to change his name to Stan Junior.”

Ford tried to smother his laughter with a cough. “He didn’t. Really?”

Stan grinned. “He had this whole three-step plan to get me to adopt him. I didn’t find out about it till he was nineteen which, I mean, it kind of defeated the whole purpose. Also, between the three of us, his grandmother would have cut my balls off. Sorry Melody.”

“Abuelita is a force to be reckoned with,” Melody said. “But I think she generally approves of anyone who isn’t Soos’s dad.”

Stan grunted. “I’m still glad she’s at her sister’s house. The last thing I need is her putting the evil eye on me over the crescent rolls.”

“You’re maligning that poor woman,” Ford said. 

“Hey, she once threatened to disembowel me with a garden ho.”

Ford refrained from smiling only by sheer force of will. “Stanley, if we wrote off everyone who ever wanted to disembowel you, we’d never be able to talk to half the people in the continental US.”

“And most of Central America,” Stan added, a note of pride in his voice that Ford felt was probably out of place. “There are at least a dozen prison guards who are probably still nursing a grudge. Plus that cartel I ran out on. And-”

“Yes, yes,” Ford said hastily, swallowing against the sudden roll of his stomach. His brother’s criminal history wasn’t much of a sore point between them at this stage, with decades and dimensions between then and now, but that didn’t mean Ford liked hearing about it. Especially not the parts that ended with his brother almost dying. Repeatedy. “Stop bragging about your law-breaking, Melody is going to realize we aren’t a respectable family.”

“On our first date Soos tried to fist-fight a sentient computer game,” Melody said languidly. “It set the expectations extremely low and fantastically high all at once.” 

There was a clatter from inside the house like a horde of Arturian musk ox descending the stairs and then Soos burst back into the gift shop. He was clutching a piece of paper in his hands which he shoved, somewhat unceremoniously, against Stan’s chest. Stan grabbed it, possibly more out of instinct than anything else judging by the startled look on his face, and held it up.

It wasn’t a piece of paper, it was a photograph. About the size of the old Polaroids Ford remembered, with a white border on all four sides. It was black and white, and at first Ford couldn’t make out any details - it looked fuzzy? A photograph of the clouds during a storm perhaps, or rough seas, or-

Oh. _Oh_. 

Ford had seen his brother handle ancient treasures, rare plants and animals, and delicate scientific devices with a sure and steady grip, but holding that photograph, his hands shook and he barely gripped the edges with his fingertips, as if afraid he’d damage if if he held it any tighter. “This is- You’re-” Stan’s voice is thick and he coughs a little to clear it. “A baby?”

“In March,” Melody said. She loops an arm through Soos’s and leans into his side as she gave Stan a bright smile. “I’m a little over five months. It would have been real obvious when we saw you at Christmas.”

Ford rested one hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Stan. Look at the bottom.”

It was Melody’s handwriting, but neater than her usual sloppy cursive. The words were clearly written out with great care and attention. 

_Stanley Ramirez  
20 weeks  
Due March 21st_

Stan touched the words with one finger. “Soos, kid. I thought you’d finally given up on the Stan Junior nonsense.”

“Nope,” Soos chirped. He was rocking up and down on his toes, watching Stan with bright eyes and a wide smile. “I just changed the plan a little.”

“A baby, huh?” Stan ducked his head and pushed his glasses up a little so he could wipe at his eyes. “You two are going to be great parents.”

“And you’re going to be the best grand-dad,” Soos said. His grip on Melody’s arm is tight, and Ford can read nerves in the way his smile widens. “We don’t have to call you that, though. If you want, the baby can just call you Mister Pines like I do.”

Melody definitely rolled her eyes a little, but fondly, if Ford was any judge.

Stan chuckled. It was a little breathless and just a little wet, but he was smiling. “Hey, Ford, I’m gonna be a grandfather.”

Ford let go of Stan’s shoulder so he could wrap his arm around his brother’s back. “So I hear.” Pride was a hot ball in his chest and he shook Stan a little. “You’re going to be a fantastic grandfather. And you two are going to be amazing parents. I can’t wait to meet the little guy.”

“Ah. Well.” Melody huffed a little laugh. She patted her stomach which - now that Ford knew to look - was definitely a little rounder than it had been the last time he saw her. “About that. We had a follow-up sonogram a few days ago and our Stanley’s definitely a little lady.”

Stan covered his eyes with one hand. “Soos. Soos, please tell me you aren’t naming your daughter Stanley?”

“Can’t do that, boss.”

“Melody.” Stan gave her a beseeching glance. “Sweetie, please talk some sense into him.”

The smile on Melody’s face was entirely at their expense. “We decided we’d just call her “Lee” unless she’s in trouble.”

“Stanley Maria,” Soos said with relish.

“I take it all back,” Stan said. “You are going to be terrible parents. That poor kid.”

Soos aimed a finger gun at Stan. “Everything I know about parenting I learned from you, Stan.”

“God help you, kid.” Stan gave the sonogram photo another smile. It was the same soft expression that Stan usually reserved for when he didn’t think anyone was watching. “End of March, huh? We can probably be back by then, what do you think, Ford?”

“We’ll make sure of it.” They were heading south after Thanksgiving to spend Chanukah with Mabel and Dipper, then spend a few weeks with Sherman before heading back to Gravity Falls to have Christmas with Soos and Melody. After that their planned itinerary had taken them out to sea for a good six months, but the disappearing island Ford had wanted to search for was an ongoing phenomenon. He could find something closer to home for a few months, and then go after the island once the baby was born and everything was settled down a little. Maybe late summer? Stan would definitely want to be here for at least a little while after the baby was born in case the kids needed anything. “There are a number of local phenomena that I’ve been meaning to look into - the giant people of Mount Hood, the hide-behind colony, the reports of localized aurora borealis. Once we get back from Piedmont we could definitely find plenty to keep us in the area through summer. We’d have to store the Stan-O-War for the winter,” he said, turning to his brother. “Feel up to road tripping it for a few months?”

“You’d do that?” Soos’s lower lip was wobbling again. 

“Of course. You’re _family_. I want to be here to meet my new great-niece.” Ford was aware of the pleased look Stan was giving him. “After all, I, too, learned everything I know about being a great-uncle from Stan, so it will be refreshing to apply the knowledge to a brand new family member.”

“This kid is so screwed,” Stan said. “Is something burning?”

“Oh, poop, the sweet potatoes!” Melody took off running.

Ford tightened his grip around his brother in a quick sideways hug, then stepped away. “I’m going to go help Melody with dinner. You two should take a look at the penguicorn. I’m sure Stan has some input.” 

“Real smooth, Poindexter,” Stan muttered. “Do not leave me here, he’s gonna cry on me I just know it.”

“They tell me parenting is hard,” Ford said. He clapped Stan on the back. “Me, I’m just the uncle. Have fun talking about your emotions.”

“Traitor,” Stan said under his breath.

Ford smirked, then had the breath knocked out of him - and was almost knocked entirely off his feet - when Soos grabbed him in a bear hug. Soos’s arms were deceptively strong and Ford wheezed slightly as he tried to get his breath back. 

“Thanks, Uncle Doctor Pines,” Soos said. 

Ford glanced at Stan who was watching them both with that same happy smile, at Melody who had reappeared in the doorway wearing an oven mitt on one hand and holding a carving knife in the other, then down at the young man who had stopped being just his brother’s handyman a long time ago, even if they’d never talked about it before. 

This was family. This was home. Whether it was here in his old house, or on the Stan-O-War with his brother or visiting Mabel and Dipper at college, this was home. These were the people he belonged with - the people who belonged to _him._

Ford rested his palms on Soos’s back and returned the hug as hard as he could.


End file.
